


Blue Ginger (Variation)

by MissEllaVation



Category: U2
Genre: Established Relationship, Extreme Sappiness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissEllaVation/pseuds/MissEllaVation
Summary: Riders on the storm. Food, sex, and health. Bono POV.





	Blue Ginger (Variation)

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might recall a silly little fic I wrote last March called 'Blue Ginger.' At that time, two important things were happening in the real world: U2 were holed up at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, and the entire northeastern U.S. was being threatened with The Most Powerful Snowstorm of the Century!!!™
> 
> Well, I live in the New York suburbs, and I complained to likeamadonna that the weather was going to put a crimp in my U2-stalking activities. She suggested that since I was gonna be trapped indoors anyway, I might as well write a fic about Bono and Edge riding out the storm. So I did. But I wrote it mostly for laughs—Bono as an amusing but childlike figure, Edge as his sensible, long-suffering boyfriend-parent. They ate the food, they drank the wine, (they watched a movie.) They bantered a lot.
> 
> Thing is, back in March 2017, we didn’t know what Bono had been through just a few months earlier. We didn’t know what 'Songs of Experience' was to become. And now we know. So I thought I’d go back and revisit the 'Blue Ginger' night from a different perspective. Yes Bedge fans, there will be some sex this time. And other stuff. I think both versions can exist in my universe? Why not. I’m in charge! 
> 
> Anyway this is pretty different from the original, so hopefully you won’t feel like you’re re-reading some old crap.
> 
> The line “I am completely operational…” comes from HAL 9000, the computer in the film '2001.' 
> 
> “I who have died am alive again today” is stolen from [this poem](https://www.poeticous.com/e-e-cummings/i-thank-you-god-for-most-this-amazing) by e.e. Cummings.
> 
> Thanks all, for putting up with me. I’m sorry I don’t do more filth. And I’m sorry the sex happens all at once in an insane rush after a ton of other bullshit. Much as in married life. ;)

I feel guilty about leaving the studio so early when there’s still so much to do _._ Well. Not so much guilty as irritated. Frustrated. Enraged?

But the Storm of the Century has already begun, or so they say. Mayor De Blasio has declared a state of emergency, and we’ve decided that if we must perish in the snowpocalypse, we’d rather do it at my place on Central Park West than in a cramped soundproof room in the Village.

This seems sadly indicative of how sensible we’ve become.

We’re also quite hungry, and all I’ve got on hand is a case of Volvic mineral water, a few bottles of Kilkenny Red Ale, and half a bag of kale chips. Who ate the other half? Surely not me. Yecch.

You’re leaning on the kitchen island with your arms folded across your chest. Nostrils flaring with annoyance. You have no idea how cute you are.

“Couldn’t you have got one of your local factotums to stock the fridge?”

“I didn’t want to make anyone go out. The weather reports have been so dire all day.”

We both look at the windows, where fat snowflakes spiral lazily through a wine-dark sky. There’s only about three inches on the ground so far. I feel that the storm’s failure to dazzle will somehow be my fault too.

Luckily there are four Chinese restaurants within quick delivery distance to my flat: Bamboo Village, Sunshine Gourmet, Blue Ginger, and Mandarin Palace Two. (As to the whereabouts of Mandarin Palace One, we can only guess.) But we decide on Blue Ginger because it sounds the sexiest. It’s the most expensive one as well, but this, as you say in your adopted west-coast patois, is “totally not a problem for the likes of us.”

“Edge, you’re totally right. Sometimes I forget that dudes give us, like, awesome amounts of money and stuff.”

“You’re a bit of a cock, aren’t you, Mr. Unprepared.”

“Surely more than a _bit._ ”

“Just come over here and look at the menu, okay?”

I follow you into the living room and sit beside you on the couch—the most obscenely soft, buttery leather couch I have ever owned, all feminine curves and brass rivets. A couch which produces salacious visions if I so much as bump my knee on it. It sinks beneath our combined weight with a sigh, and shoves us together.

“This couch, Bono.”

“I know. I think it’s possessed by the ghost of a buxom fan-dancer.”

“That’s a very specific ghost.”

“And the cushions are her fleshy bosom. Fancy a little ghostly threesome tonight?”

You twinkle at me. “Just look at the menu, would you?”

I obey. Can’t read the text though; wrong glasses. So I peer at the photographs, displayed beautifully on your tablet, which shows no fingerprints at all, not even on the dark areas. Because you are a fucking alien.

“Okay Edge. Get me one of everything.”

“Come on.”

“No really—anything sweet and/or spicy will do.”

“Hm, how about sweet-and-spicy armadillo? Oh look at that, they leave the head on.”

“Give me the fucking tablet.”

“You believed me about the armadillo.”

“I did not.” I zoom in, surreptitiously. “Though you never know with these places that call themselves ‘Asian Fusion.’”

“Armadillos are from Texas.”

“Of _course,_ Edge, that’s the fusion bit. Oh, get me something with Hunan chili sauce. I’m addicted to that stuff. Chicken, shrimp, doesn’t matter.”

“Right. Armadillo in Hunan chili sauce. White rice or brown?”

Your paternal humor is tiresome, but your eyes, your damned olive-almond eyes, are dancing.

“Edge.”

“Bono.”

“Will you wait for the delivery guy? I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Of course, sweetheart. You don’t want company?”

“Not this time. I just want to stand under hot water and get my humanity back.”

You put your tablet down on the coffee table, then take my hand and pull it to your mouth. You kiss my knuckles, then my palm. Your silvery beard tickles my skin. I lean my forehead against your plaid shoulder. Solid, reassuring, and warm.

“Edge.”

“B.”

“You can’t have any of my armadillo, so don’t even try. Order your own damn armadillo.”

“No worries, babe.”

***

There’s a certain kind of scuzz that settles over you after too many hours in the studio. A combination of warm technology—which I insist smells like fried dust, though no one else understands this—old coffee, and general male muskiness. I don’t mind a bit of the scuzz on _you_ , Edge, because you’re not even of this world, but I don’t like it on myself.

In my oversized-yet-tasteful cream-and-sage bathroom, the shower spray comes at you from all sides, like a team of eager lovers. But lately, when I’m alone with my body, I tend to feel a little unnerved. I mean, just imagine the headlines if I happened to slip on an errant bit of soap.

**He Falls Down: Old Fart Bono In Traction Again after Bathtub Mishap  
** _“He broke himself,” says doc_

I’ve half a mind to call you, Edge, to come join me after all. To talk me down or something. But you’re waiting for the delivery guy, and that’s more important.

The thing is, once something happens to you, once you’ve been through something, or close to something, you can almost start to believe that you’re fragile, even ephemeral. Some people seem to exist just to make you feel that way. The burly EMT, for example, who was half my age and not in awe of me at all, who didn’t even recognize me until someone told him who I was, who only saw me as another old guy on a gurney, gray-faced and unable to breathe.

His nametag said _Kyle_. “Hang in there, sir,” he said.

So you always have to remember who the fuck you really are. The guy who has only to raise his arms above his head to get 60 thousand strangers to do the same, like the world’s biggest game of Simon Says. The guy who cocks his hip and hears 30 thousand women go “whooooo.”

That’s who the fuck I am, Kyle.

Okay, I mean, you probably saved my life, Kyle. You’re alright, Kyle. Sorry, Kyle.

***

I put on an old, soft black sweater and jeans. Decide against socks, because it’s nice and warm in here and the rugs feel good underfoot. I don’t really need my glasses in the lamplight, so I hook them into my collar.

When I walk into the kitchen, you’re pulling takeaway containers from a huge brown shopping bag.

“My hero.”

“My God, look at you.”

Your eyes are all lovey-dovey, but I play dumb. “What?”

“With your hair all undone like that. You’re just so…you.”

“That’s good, is it?”

“Yeah. You look just like that weird kid from Ballymun with the freckles and the big mouth. And the disturbingly sexy neck. About to hold forth on a matter of great import.”

“I’m hungry.”

“See?”

***

We sit again on the bawdy couch, with the food spread out on the coffee table in front of us, along with the bottles of Kilkenny Red. (Which had to be smuggled into New York—a story for another day.)

“Isn’t the chili sauce a beautiful color? Like liquid rubies. And it tastes just like it looks.”

“You’ve tasted liquid rubies?”

“I’ve tasted lots of things, Reg. Oh look, you’re blushing.”

“Eat your vegetables, B.”

“Must I?”

“Yes.”

You wield your chopsticks like an expert. You never even drop a rice grain. You pop some bok choy into my mouth, then a spear of red pepper, then a water chestnut. “This is the best intake method for vegetables, Bono. Crunchy, and camouflaged by all this nice sauce.”

“Agreed. Much better than the tinned peas of our youth.”

“It’s amazing that we even grew up.”

“Well, we didn’t grow _much_ , did we Edge.”

“Speak for yourself. Bamboo shoot?”

“No thank you.”

“Shiitake mushroom?”

“Go on.”

“I like feeding you. I like to watch you eat.”

“You’re a freak, my love.”

“If you like.”

“I do like. Obviously.”

Finally, after eating enough for six people, with attendant feelings of guilt (and mild eroticism?) we come around to the fortune cookie ceremony. You crack yours open the way you do everything, methodically and with great care. You hold in your beautiful slender fingers two perfect halves of cookie, the fortune unfurling like a banner between them. You read it to yourself, and start to laugh.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, The Edge. Read it out!”

“If you’re sure… okay. Ahem. ‘A short individual will soon enter your life with blessings to share.’”

“Bullshit. It does not say ‘short.’”

“It fucking _does.”_

“Give it here.” I snatch the fortune from your hands and bring it close to my eyes, then move it to a more sensible arm’s length. “Oh my God.”

“Well, what’s the deal? Do you have blessings to share?”

“Do you not _know_ me by now, Edge? Of _course_ I have blessings to share. The question is, what kind of blessing would you like?”

“Hm. Let me think about that.”

“Don’t think too hard, baybeh.”

“Just open your cookie already so we can get on with life.”

I attempt to give my cookie a gentle crack but of course it shatters into pieces, a few of which miss the table and land on the rug, where they will blend in seamlessly until we crush them underfoot. At least I know enough this time to hold the damn fortune eighteen inches from my head.

“‘The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.’”

“Does it really say that?”

“Afraid so.”

But you need proof, so you snatch the little slip of paper away from me, read it, then look up with reddening eyes. You raise your beer bottle to me. “In that case, sweetheart, may you continue to be joyful as fuck.” Your voice breaks on the ‘fuck.’

“Edge, don’t. Please don’t.”

You swipe the back of your hand across your eyes, but it doesn’t help. “Sorry.”

“Okay, that’s it. Imma fucking tickle you now if you don’t stop… Oh, now you’re laughing and crying at the same time. Would you ever simmer down, The Edge?”

“But Bono…when you say ‘Imma…’”

“What about it?”

“Like this: _Oimma fookin’ tickle yeh.”_

“Yeah. See, the more annoying you are, the more Irish I get.”

You take another swipe at your eyes. “I’ll bear that in mind from now on.”

“You better.”

***

Outside, the snow has turned to sleet, but we are very cozy in here. Frozen rain spattering the windows like handfuls of thrown rice. The lights of the city showing through in little whorls of gold. We are nestled deep in the bosom of the buxom couch, while the telly, on mute, plays a marathon of old black-and-white movies. My head is in your lap, and I think I feel happier than I’ve felt in ages.

“Can’t believe we’re on tour again in a couple of months, Edge. So much enforced togetherness.”

“Looking forward to it?”

“Oh _yes_. Aren’t you?”

“Of course! You nervous?”

“A little. Not really. I don’t get nervous; you know that.”

Your fingers sift through my hair, lift it up, rub the back of my neck, let my hair fall again. An act which brings to my mind certain other acts. Blessings, perhaps, that a short individual might bestow upon you.

“Your hair is so nice and thick, B. You know, you could grow it long again, dye it black, be a diva.”

“Maybe I’ll do that for Experience, or Innocence. Whatever we’re calling it.”

“And you can go on stage in slinky outfits that show off all your bits. I miss those nipple-grazing suspenders.”

“I think The Spirit of the Couch is within you, my love.”

“Mm, she is. Definitely. Sit up for a bit, let me look at you.”

I sit up slowly and turn to face you. Plant one knee on either side of your lap.

You take my face between your hands; you stroke my jaw. “Sweetheart.”

“Can’t believe you still call me that.”

“I always will. It suits you.”

Your beard is frosty, the hair that peeks from the open collar of your shirt is silvery. You look like a pagan god of the winter, and your eyes are a green reminder of spring. You ought to be wearing a crown of mistletoe. “You’re gorgeous, Edge. I don’t think you’ve ever been as gorgeous as you are right now.”

You bow your head to acknowledge the compliment. You run your thumbs along my eyebrows, my forehead, the skin under my eyes. As if you’re trying to smooth me over. It feels wonderful. I remember you doing the same thing years ago—eons ago—when we were alone once in the back room of a club. You were soothing my poor misdiagnosed eyes. Now you keep touching my face, and I keep letting you, watching you. I know you can feel how the bones protrude, more than they did a few months ago. How thin my skin feels. I’m still surprised by this myself.

Your hands touch down lightly on various parts of me—neck, shoulder, chest, hip—as if you want to make sure I’m still here. I really do want to luxuriate in your concern, and I know I would be just as concerned were the situation, God forbid, reversed. I would dote on you. Feed you soup and pudding. Ginger ale through a straw. I would never let you out of my sight again.

But on the other hand, I want you to know that I am still your _man,_ your lover, your tireless sex machine, wanted the world over by girls, boys, and everyone else. So I grab your hands and place them on my ass. “You don’t have to be so gentle with me, Edge.”

“Oh, don’t I? All right then.” You pull me forward, not gently at all, so that I’m straddling you properly. You press your lips to my neck. “You know…I remember you saying that very same thing, about twenty-five years ago…it was winter then, just like this.”

“Yes, Love. In your bedroom with the candles and the blue linens. In your blue room.”

You kiss me deep and long, while your hands gather me in, as close to you as possible. I love this. I love you. Use all the strength in my arms and legs to cling to you. You are beautiful and warm, and I’m damned if I’ll ever give any of this up without a struggle. I who have died am alive again today. It may be snowing, but it’s March, it’s nearly spring, the light is returning to the world. I feel spring stirring in me, and in you. We’re never finished, you and I.

“God. It never goes away, does it.”

My beloved mind-reader. “No, Edge. It doesn’t.”

“Well.”

“Well.” Preoccupied briefly with the deep indentation between your lower lip and your chin, which always begs for my fingertips. “Seems I am completely operational, and all of my circuits are functioning perfectly.”

There‘s your big laugh, the one that makes your eyes disappear into complicated folds and furrows. I make a production out of slithering down the front of you, out of your grasp, out of your lap, and onto the floor. Onto my knees. (A shard of fortune cookie goes _crunch_.) I lift up the front of your untucked shirt, my hands seeking button and zip.

“I’ve missed you, B.” Your hands on my shoulders. “I want you to stay right here.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Oh look at you, Edge. So beautiful.”

I rub my face against your belly, while I pull your black jeans and your amusingly red jockeys out of my way. This is also who I am, this is a thing I’m good at. A skill that vanishingly few people know about. Imagine if they did; imagine if they were privy to the way you whisper my name, or if they could hear the sharp breath you take as I slip my tongue beneath your balls.

You keep one firm hand on the back of my neck, but with the other you stroke my face lightly, so gently. One brute hand, and one that can’t bear to hurt me. I understand you. It’s alright, Edge, look. I’m going to take you in as far as I can. I’m not going anywhere. Take your time. I love this. I love you, all the particulars of you, the way you move, the taste of your skin. Your hardness. Your thighs hot and taut under my hands. I imagine the way my mouth must feel to you. I know.

You say _babe, angel, yes._ The most ordinary words, the words that everyone says, but they attain the level of poetry because of how you say them. Your voice, just yours. Your pleasure, just yours. Your quickening, precious breath. Respiration, inspiration. The same root. From the Latin _inspirare._ Also related to the Latin _spiritus._ The life-force, the soul. To breathe life into. To give the breath of life.

This is what you do for me. This is why I stay right here.

We know each other so well, love. I know the very moment, the moment you’re about to come. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I promise. Go ahead love, go ahead.

“Oh. Pretty baby." Your hands tugging my hair. "I love you. I love you.”

I love you, Edge.

I love how you try to pull me back up into your lap, whispering, _please, please, don’t stay down there alone,_ while you’re barely recovered. I love how you kiss me while the taste of you lingers in my mouth.

You hold me here, in your lap, for a very long time, your face pressed to my chest. I start to worry, because after all I’m not some featherweight little girl. But when I try to shift, you only hold me tighter. I can feel your body shaking.

“Edge, you’re not crying. Please, not now. Really.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve just been acting like everything’s normal—”

“Everything _is_ normal.”

“I know, I know. But I guess it was all building up—” you tap your own chest— “here, and you’ve just opened the floodgates.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it now?”

“Jesus, you’re evil.” Kissing my forehead. “You are so irreverent.”

“It’s just that I prefer to make you laugh, not cry.”

“And I appreciate that.”

“Good.”

“But right now, I think I’d like to return the blessing you’ve just given me, so if you would kindly lie down here, in the bosom of our friendly haunted couch…”

“Sweet Edge. I’m alright.” (And I'm half-afraid, somehow.)

“I want to. You can’t imagine how much. I was thinking about this all day, if you want to know the truth.”

"About—?"

"Sucking your cock, sweetheart."

“Well, okay. But only because it’s _so_ important to you.”

You plump up a throw pillow, place it behind my head. Ridiculous boy. You plant a kiss under my left eye, where the freckles are thickly clustered. You stroke my hair. “Blue Ginger, that’s you.”

There’s my heart melting. “A big eejit,” I whisper. “That’s you.”

“Tsk. If people only knew how meanly you treat me…” You pull my sweater over my head, let it drop at the side of the couch. “Your chest is a mystery, Bono. When you’re dressed you look so small. But underneath it all you’re this gorgeous bear of a man.”

“That’s me. Bono Mystery-Chest Vox. Hug me, Skinny Boy.”

I still call you that sometimes, in homage. You were _such_ a skinny boy. I will always remember the time I picked your jeans up off the floor of a hotel room, in about 1983. They were Levi’s, with the red tag on the arse-pocket and the leather patch with the size printed. You had a 28-inch waist. I was fascinated. You were just walking around like that in the world, with your tiny waist and your delicate wrists and ankles. I remember thinking your ankles were nicer than most women’s. And at that point my brain got stuck and would go no further.

You’re not really skinny now, except perhaps in comparison to me. Still beautiful though. Still delicate in all your movements. In this world but not of it. The skin on your back like silk under my hands. Your kisses deep, slow, and sweet.

“If I could, Bono, I’d just wrap myself around you all day like an invisible force-field.”

“I’d like that, Edge. I’d go everywhere with you wrapped around me. Do interviews that way. No one would know why I seemed to be in a permanent state of ecstasy. Breathing hard, eyes rolling back…”

Your quiet laugh. I close my eyes, the better to follow your mouth as it travels over my body. Neck. Left ear. Oh. Shoulder. Down the length of my left arm, following a scar all the way to my fingers.

“Sweetheart.”

“My Edge.”

Your mouth on my neck again. Then throat. Nipple. Oh Edge.

Your hands loosen my jeans, shove them away. “Commando, huh?”

I shrug. “It’s my night off.”

Your laughter. Your fingers, and your mouth. Your mouth and my cock. At last. _God._ And the entire universe contracts to this single point of contact.

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve any of this, to deserve you. Your beauty, your strength, your love. The songs hidden away in your heart and your hands. My music and my muse.

“Edge…”

"Sweetheart. Relax."

I’m distracted by the rapid beating of my heart. But no, it’s supposed to do that, this is right, this is good. I’ve felt for a while now as if I’ve been hovering some distance above myself, outside myself, watching. But now I’m falling through space, fast, faster than I wanted to, down toward the small circle of heat formed by your lips and tongue. Such sweet, concentrated agony. How do we live through this? How would we ever live without it? 

“Edge…”

I’m sorry, love, for my inelegant crash-landing.

_“Edge.”_

Waves and waves of pleasure, like ocean, like sunlight. Can feel your tongue. Your swallowing. My hand feels welded to the back of your head. I think I must be hurting you, but I can hear, underneath all the noise I’m making, your little triumphant laugh.

“My god, Edge. Stop. I love you. Stop.”

A split second of cold air, and then your cheek. You’re resting your cheek lightly on my cock, nuzzling it, as if it’s some little pet of yours, and I suppose it is. Now I can finally come back to myself. Fingers and toes first, then limbs, then heart.

“Edge, love. I believe you’ve put me back in my body.”

“Again? Well, try to stay in there now.”

“I plan to. Come up here, will you?”

You shift around so I can kiss you. Hold your face between my hands. Your beautiful, your precious sculptural face. Della Robbia, Donatello. And your lips, your very, very important lips. Just the two of us in a tangle of discarded clothes and hot skin, in the welcoming embrace of the bawdy couch. I think the couch must be very pleased with us.

“Why are you laughing, B.?”

I fling my arm out to indicate the beautiful warm flat, the kitchen full of leftovers, the windows full of purple sky and glittering snow. “Why not, The Edge? Why not?”


End file.
